Rahul Dravid’s greatness is known to everyone. Several former cricketers and present cricketers have opened up that former Indian cricketer has been their go-to guy. Whenever they have struggled in their career, Dravid had motivated them and shown the correct path. Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw and other young cricketer have acknowledged that Dravid had helped them to cope up with their insecurities.
Now, Kevin Pietersen, former England great cricketer, has revealed that Dravid’s advice when he was struggling to play against spinners has helped him to save his career.
During the Bangladesh series in 2010, Kevin Pietersen had stumbled to play against the likes of Shakib-al-Hasan and Abdul Razzak. Then Rahul Dravid dropped an e-mail to Pietersen which helped him to play the spinners better.
“Dravid wrote me the most beautiful email, explaining the art of playing spin and ever since then it was a whole new world. The key point was looking for the length as soon as the ball was delivered – wait for the spinner and make your decision,” Pietersen said on Sky Sports.
Tellingly, Pietersen and Dravid played together for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL for two years – 2009 and 2010 – during which the two bonded.
Kevin Pietersen mentioned in his book about Rahul Dravid:
Pietersen had earlier mentioned about Dravid in his book ‘KP: The Autobiography’. He also revealed how Rahul Dravid showed the right direction.
“One good practice is to bat against Swann and Monty without pads or with just knee pads (maybe not a day before a game!). When you have no pads it will force you, sometimes painfully, to get the bat forward of the pads and will force you to watch the ball,” read a part of Dravid’s mail to Pietersen.
“Also, the leg will be less keen to push out without any protection. My coach would tell me you should never need pads to play spin!! Watch the ball and trust yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t play spin, I have seen you and you can!”
Kevin Pietersen has played 104 Tests, 136 ODIs and 37 T20Is and was the leading scorer for his team at several events.